Good day, everyone! Apologies for the delays in getting you all new Westworld content. We’re now hours from the final stretch leading up to the first season finale, and though there will be more Westworld posts coming from me during the off season, these last two episode posts will be something of an artifact moving forward, what with all the speculation and fan theories. That said, shall we dive right in?

A lot has been happening in recent weeks as we are pointed toward the end of this leg of the journey, so I will attempt to remain focused on a handful of characters whose stories have felt paramount to me. Let’s look at Dolores, Bernard, and Maeve—the three most important hosts in the story, as far as we have seen.

Across capture by Logan and William’s personal evolution into a darker and crueler person (the beginnings of the Man in Black, anyone?), Dolores has stood out as a potential representative of the several timelines at play within the story. With a host’s perfect recall, she has simultaneously witnessed several iterations of herself traveling a specific path toward the center of the Maze, if her eventual meeting with Arnold in episode nine is seen that way. If not, where does she have left to go, now that the Man in Black has arrived?

Dolores finds the “real” Arnold deep within her memories.

On the topic of Arnold, we now know definitively that Ford created Bernard to replace his deceased friend Arnold (apparently murdered by Dolores, if her memories hold true). It is unclear how many times Bernard has discovered his identity as a host, but it is clear he has and that some of his memories from previous iterations are bleeding through, like with the older hosts (such as Dolores and Maeve).

Maeve reveals to Hector that the safe was always empty.

Maeve is truly the host to watch in the finale. Felix and Sylvester have upgraded her to the point where she is effectively a goddess when free in the park. Her ability to understand and control other hosts has evolved to the point where she can even see the reality of Bernard’s identity, and she sets him free to seek answers from Ford. The fact that Bernard (possibly permanently dead after his confrontation with Ford) does nothing to try hindering Maeve after all of this means she has free range to recruit an army and march on her creators/captors—surely the great action of the finale.

Clementine holds a gun on Ford, per Bernard’s orders.

All of that said, where do we go next? What other revelations are you looking forward to tonight? What other characters are you watching? I suppose we’ll finally get a revelation of the Man in Black’s identity as well. We shall see. Please let me know your thoughts in the comments below and keep coming back to my posts on Comparative Geeks in Westworld’s off-season for more content, speculation, retrospectives, and even memes and artwork collections. We’ll make it to the next season in 2018. Keep the faith until then.

Former English teacher and writing tutor; fan of comics, books, video games, whiskey, and beer. Co-founder and co-owner of Blue Spider Press, LLC and Blue Spider's Attic monthly subscription box. Check us out at www.bluespiderpress.com and www.bluespidersattic.com.

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